There’s nothing like laughing in a theater full of people, and Hollywood already has the blueprint to make it happen.
It seems like every year we see the industry and news outlets reporting that horror is back. But the horror genre never really left. It’s always been a big part of the theatrical experience.
What I never see is that “comedy is back”. And comedy actually has left theaters. Comedy needs to come back to movie theaters, and I think the horror genre proves there is a path for that to happen and be profitable for filmmakers and studios.
What I Miss
Personally, I’d like to see way more comedies in movie theaters. I miss the days when I was in high school and every Friday night you could go to the movies and see a horror movie or a comedy. Those were the two genres that always had something to offer. As much as people love being scared in a dark room full of people, we also love to laugh in a dark room full of people.
I miss going to see movies like The Hangover and Superbad, and even really dumb, bad comedies that still worked because you were in a theater laughing with other people. Laughter is contagious. Comedies like that just don’t work as well at home, where you’re sitting on your couch, maybe with your spouse or a couple of friends. It’s not the same as being in a theater with 100 people.
When people tell me, “Oh, that movie wasn’t very funny,” or “Oh, that movie wasn’t very scary,” my point is that you really needed to see that movie in a movie theater. It would be scary in a movie theater. It’s a shared experience with other people who are also scared, and that’s going to enhance the scare. In the same way, a shared community experience around a comedy, with contagious laughter, is going to enhance the comedic experience.
I can’t tell you how many “bad” comedies I’ve seen in movie theaters where I ended up really loving the experience of watching them because of how fun the audiences were.
The Horror Movie Formula Proves Comedy Can Work
There is a direct line here that I think the world of comedy could follow to have the same level of success that horror movies are having.
Horror and comedy are very close as genres. That’s why you see crossover from people like Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger. There’s a buildup and there’s a payoff. Whether its a joke or a scare, the formula is the same. But beyond that, they can also be made on a fairly tight budget and live off of word of mouth, just like horror movies.
Think about a movie like Obsession. It was made for under $1 million, and it made more than $500 million. That’s the same formula that could work for independent comedies. But for some reason, independent comedies don’t get the theatrical distribution and the push that horror movies get.
You’ve seen these movements with comedy before. When The Hangover hit movie theaters, it was a sensation. When you have a good comedy that does something different and blows people away, just like a horror movie, the word of mouth can carry it into a massive success. Nathan Fielder’s documentary You Can See Everything is a great example of how it can work. That is a 3 hour semi-comedic documentary which is killing at the box office. Word of mouth is everything.
The Math Works
Without naming names, let’s just say I’ve talked to a very prominent comedian who was in many movies in the mid-2000s and early 2010s, and he feels the same way. Hollywood is shunning comedies, relegating them to streaming services or only having an interest in television sitcoms. Comedies need to come back to theaters, and we both agree that there’s a successful path for studios here.
Studios are losing their shirts on these big blockbuster swings. They spend hundreds of millions of dollars and don’t make their money back, when they could be funding lots of $5 to $10 million mid-level comedies with comedic stars. There are great writers out there itching to get their stuff onto the screen and into theaters, and they can do it for that budget. You don’t have to make $100 million. If you make $50 million, that’s a success.
Comedy can follow the same formula as horror: low budget, same payoff. Both genres work better in the movie theater. So why isn’t it happening for one of them?
So Why Won’t Studios Do It?
I just don’t know why studios won’t embrace comedy the same way they embrace horror, but I think it has a lot to do with the optics of the comedy world right now.
There is an idea that comedy has been cheapened a little bit by the internet. People are used to having their comedies on streaming services, and comedies, unlike horror, tend to skew more toward TV now than movies. There are comedy TV shows all over the place. Every network has several of them. But you don’t see every major movie studio putting out comedies every year the way they do horror movies.
I don’t know if it’s because audiences have shifted. I don’t know if it’s because, whether you like it or not, comedy has come under fire a bit lately from all sides, and it’s hard to make a comedy that everyone’s going to be happy with and nobody’s going to be offended by. But that’s what made the greatest comedic movies so great: the filmmakers didn’t care, and audiences could interpret them on their own terms. So who are these studios to block that? Allow these great comedic minds to develop projects, and when one hits, it can have the same effect as these big indie horror hits.
Where Are the Legends?
To get this truly rolling, I think some of the legends of comedy need to take back the silver screen and focus on theatrical vs streaming and television.
Take Adam Sandler. Yes, he has a great deal with Netflix and can make as many dumb movies as he wants, whether you think they’re funny or not. I love the man. He gets to do what he wants, and he makes a great living. But I’d love to see him get back to embracing what made his career so huge: The Waterboy, Happy Gilmore, Billy Madison, The Wedding Singer, Big Daddy. All these movies just blew up his career because they were such theatrical successes.
I think the same about the Judd Apatow crowd from the mid/late-2000s or legends like Will Ferrell, who hasn’t led a major theatrical comedy since 2018. A lot of them are making shows or movies with streaming services, because the guaranteed money is there. But who remembers any of those? Outside of Seth Rogen’s The Studio, which is brilliant, I can’t name anything these guys have done in the last several years. They used to rule the box office, and now they’ve all but disappeared.
Bring Back the Big Laugh
So why can’t we bring back the major studio comedy? Where are the Caddyshacks and the Blazing Saddles? Where are the Happy Gilmores and the Waterboys? Where is Ace Ventura? Where is The Hangover? Where is Step Brothers? Where is all the greatness that was in theaters through the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s, 2000s and 2010s, and then just fell off the face of the earth over the last five to 10 years?
Comedies aren’t completely gone. I love recent movies like Bottoms, Friendship, Splitsville, Oh, Hi!, and so many more. The talent is out there. But the marketing and distributor push into theaters often isn’t.
I think the Hollywood studios are completely missing the boat. They aren’t making the connection between the success they’re seeing with horror and the success they could be seeing with comedy.
I hope they all come back someday. I hope somebody gets the message and brings comedies back into movie theaters. Because you know what we could all really use? A big laugh. And nothing beats a big laugh with a big crowd.
I think the "legends" aspect is the most important. Horror works without major stars (hell, sometimes that makes it work more).
Every previous comedy "era" was driven by a star. The 90s was Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler in front of the camera, and people like the Farrelly brothers behind it. The 2000's was Will Ferrell and the Judd Apatow cohort. Obviously there are comedies that weren't fully star driven and a bunch that don't fall under that bracket, but generally speaking comedies were kept afloat by a few important people.
I think the issue, really, is that there has been a breakout comedy star in years, and I don't actually think the legends will be able to carry the torch. They've all aged out of their manic antics in different ways, or have made a string of disapointments.
But I do think Hollywood NEEDS to be searching for that new blood.
Jeff, I'm with you on everything you said in this piece. At least we're getting 24 Jump Street next year. I hope that will be a smashing success and show studios that audiences want comedies.